Sunday morning long run with my brother

 Today I was up at 06:10 a..m, but was out running at 07:05 a.m. still dark. Today I ran my long run again with my brother and we did the port route. He has become  my running partner for the last month or so. We do every run together and that has helped a lot. The plan today was to do 1 hour and 47 mins again like the past week. To be honest I wanted to do it faster, but at the same effort, without forcing the pace. It was basically the same pace like last week. Last week there was a lot of wind, so today was easier and today I felt awesome at the end. I could have gone much longer, but my knees I think would not support that just yet. I am liking this runs, the views in the port are awesome. 

I finished in 1 hour and 47 mins, for the first hour I experienced some stomach problems, but after the hour started feeling better and better. Aroud 17.6 kms total. 57.5 kgs for the week on 5 runs, which is pretty good for me. I am loving how I am feeling with my training and with the consistency. I am loving these morning runs, and they have helped to step up in my volume of training. 

Great week of training. Next week we will do 2 hours. I have not run 2 hours since 2005, so its time to do it again.

Morning R pace workout

 Yesterday I took the day off as I am doing in the last few months, resting Monday and Friday.

Today I was up at :6:00 a.m. and was out  at 06:45 a.m. I warmed up 25 mins at an easy pace, but faster than my usual warm up pace as I wanted to be ready for the 800m. After the 25 mins, I did 6 x 15 secs strdies with 45 seconds walking. I warmed up alone, and then joined my brother for the workout. The workout would be exactly the same as 2 weeks ago, 1 x 800m, 800m jog rest, then  6 x  400m y with 400m jog rest in between. All the hard part at R pace, or roughly mile pace. However, the 800s we wanted to do it sub 3 mins. I have to admit that we are not on that shape just yet, or at lest in the first repetition, because we always run our fastest in the last one.  Long story short, workouts was slower than 2 weeks ago, but I felt better and stronger. However, the legs were very tired after those 800m. Splits were 3:06 ( first 400s 1:31,  second 400s 1:35), 1:37, 1:38, 1:37, 1:34 ,1:33, 1:24. In the last one I wanted to run sub 90 secs. I did not know that I had 1:24 in me today, because I was going through the motions on every repeat, because my legs felt tired. My brother really surprised me today, I just beated him in the 800m by 1 sec, but he beated me in all the 400m, yea, including the last one where he ran 1:22. Very happy for him. I feel that I never truly warmed up, weather was around 8 celsius today and I wore short sleeves, in fact I have always worn short sleeves and shorts for running in the last 6 weeks or so. No excuses, keep working hard to run that 800m sub 3 mins at the same effort. 15:30 cool down to home.

Around 12.8k total

Morning easy run

 Today I was up at 5:35 a.m. and was out at 06:15 a.m. with my brother to do the " Maximo Gomez" route. We started out very slow, but then I started to heat up and increasing the pace, but of course, keeping the pace fairly easy. I dropped my brother from mins 13-14 until 26-27 mins where he sped up to catch me. Finished the run feeling pretty good. 51:13 for 8.3k. No strides today.

Zapping the zero

 Monday  -  planned rest day

Tuesday -  Yesterday I woke up at 5:35 a.m. was out with my brother  at 06:05 a.m. and I did the " Maximo Gomez route", He did a bit more than me. The pace was easy and I included 6 x 100m strides after the 40 mins. I finished the run in 51:02. Felt strong at the end. Short sleeves, in fact I do have 1 month wearing shorts and short sleeves. I feel that there is more cold in the evening than early in the morning. Around 8.3k total.

Wednesday -  Today was up at 5:30 a.m. and out at 06:00 a.m. to the turia park. My brother and I would do an interval workout. He would do 4 x 1200m with 500m jog recovery. I did 3 x 1200m with 500m recovery and 1 x 400m fast. I felt pretty good, but had some stomach problems before starting. Did not bothered much during the workout luckily. Splits were: 5:16, 5:18, 5:08. In the last repeat of 400m did 1:31 as usual.

Warmed up 16 mins including 5 x 50m strides and the cool down was around 18 mins. Around 2.6-2.7k for the cool down. Total for the day was around 10.5k .

Long run

 Yesterday I woke up at 06:10 a.m. and was out at 07:01 a.m. dark to do my long run, I met my brother at the 3-4 mins mark and then we ran together until I had 1 hour and 42 mins. I did 1:47:00 total. We went to the port, but when we arrived the port there was a strong head wind and we were running at 6:40 per pace due to the wind. It was hard and you have to put a lot of effort to " beat " the wind. All in all, I felt very strong and good. Felt very strong when I finished. The weather was good. Average pace for the run was 6:05 per km and the distance covered was around 17.5-17.6k. I want to ramp up to the half marathon soon. I never have done long runs like that, so I have to give it a try before I run out of " improvement".

5 runs for the week. Felt pretty and feeling better and better with each passing week.

Today 'Monday I rest. Resting Mondays and Fridays.

Catching up

 On Wednesday 17/02 - I was out at 5:35 a.m. and was out at 06:00 a..m. to do my interval workout with my brother.We headed out to the turia park. The plan was to run 1 x 1600m, 800m jog recovery, 3 x 800m with 400m jog recovery. I warmed up 15 mins including 5 x 50m strides. Then the workout started, the plan for the mile was to run well sub the 7:31, that I did 3 weeks ago. The real goal was to run at sub 7:15. I did 7:11, and my brother did 7:15. I crossed the first  km in 4:33 still cold, but it seems that I warmed up nicely over the last 600m. The breathing was more labored than I would have liked, but felt overall nonethe less. Then did 3 x 800m in 3:26, in the second one I mistakenly stopped at the 600m mark, but once my brother shouted at me, I realized that I was wrong and started running again until completing the 800m. Time of that repeat including the stop was 3:23- 3:25. It was dark and I set my point that the stopping point was that for that repeat, generally that is the point where we stop when doing 1000m repeats, yes I am getting old and mindless lol. In the last repeat I pushed it a bit, but maintained good form. breathing was a bit fast, but I felt fresh overall for the workout, so I consider that a success. My brother was very happy with his splits also, He did sub 3:28 all the 800m repeats, which is faster than we should, but we alwas have trained faster than we race. Did 15 mins cool down to home. Did 10-11k total for the day.

Thursday 18/02 - I was up again at 5:35 a.m. started running at 6:05 a.m. with my brother and we did again the "Maximo Gomez" route. Felt pretty good and easy. Did 52:20 for 8.2 - 8.3k. Felt pretty good. Kept the effort easy to absorb the prior`s day workout.

Friday - OFF

Today I was up at 6:10 a..m. Did some business in the bathroom so I ended up going out at 7:10 a.m. The plan for today was to do a 6k tempo run in the port with my brother. We are liking that route for our long runs, so we gave it a try for our tempo runs, trusting his GPS watch. We did pretty good and the terrain is pancake flat, perfect for tempo runs. I warmed up 19 mins total, icluded 6 x 50m strides to warm up fine. We started near a big watch ( like the ben watch in London) and then did 3k out and 3k back in the maritime path. Great views and enviroment eventhough there is not a lot of people that early. The first km was very slow in 5:05 or so for me, my brother was a couple of seconds back. We started the first 400-500m very conservative, but after checking that it was that slow, I accelerated inmeediately and found my rythm. I no longer looked at the watch though, just told my brother to let me know when we had to turn around, He passed me after the 2.5k so he was making the pace, I was just a step  back and when he said to turn around I did, then tried to speed up a bit for the second half or at least keep the same effort. He was ahead for 5-6 seconds in the 5k mark, but I catched him with 400m to go and stayed at his side and we basically finished together in 29:39 for the 6k. Although his watch marked 29:41. First half according to my watch was 14:52, I pressed the split button without looking at halfway point. I felt pretty good. The breathing was a bit labored, but I felt good overally and pancake flat terrain helped a lot. Sometimes in the Turia there are ups and down and the terrain is not that even and flat. Also the views here are much wider, you can see a lot fared, so when you have 600,m to go you can see the finish line. In the turia park you can basically see 100-200m ahead at the most. I really liked the experience. Its the first time we do a tempo run outside of the Turia park and the blasco park. Very satisfied with this workout. Did 17:42 for cool down and felt great in the cool down. The last 5 mins were at a good pace ( at my normal easy pace or even faster and felt very strong). Around 12k total or so.

Tomorrow again we will do 1 hour and 45 mins in the port views. Thats the beauty of the morning runs, you basically have the city for you!

Catching up

 Sunday 14/02 - I went out at 07:00 a.m. still dark to do my long run, At the 5 min mark I joined my brother and the goal today was to run 1 hour and 45 mins, which is my longest long run timewise in training since 2005, so 15+ years. I took the route of the port, beatiful sunrise, and beatiful landscape. The long run passed by quicky, the pace was very conversational, but the last 15 mins were a struggle because my legs were a bit uncoordinated. I was very happy to have accomplised the goal and in 3 weeks I want to be in the 2 hour mark, something that I have not done since 2005 and I think that was a missing piece in developming my potential. When I ran my prs my longest run was only 10 miles. The pace was very easy, around 6:10 per km, but we got the job done, We covered around 17k. We were tired from Saturday`s workout, the last 5k were sub 6 mins per km pace though. I am feeling good in my training and really loving my morning runs, something that I did not do before.

5 runs this week. As I said I am running 5 times per week, probably will increase to 6 times once the races start. At this point we dont know when we are going to race again. In the meantime we are doing time trials once in a while. On 27/02 we will do another Mile time trial, but I think my brother wont run on that one. 

Monday -  Planned off day.

Today I was up at 05:35 a.m. and was out at 6:10 a.m. with my brother. We did the "Maximo Gomez" route. This time we started faster from the get go, I was feeling very fresh. In the 3k mark ( or so) we did it 1 min faster than we usually run, at that point I knew that it was going to be a good day, I did not force the pace though, since it was an easy day, but I let myself go a little. At the 38 mins or something like that I threw my usual Monday strides. I did 6 of them. Keeping good and form, but trying to keep the cadence fast. The glute is behaving very well, and for that reason I have been able to get the those fast workouts. Time for today was 49:41. 3-4 mins faster than usual and feeling very easy and strong. Tomorrow morning an interval workout.

Morning R pace Intervals

 Yesterday I took the day off. As I said previously I am running 5 times per week and its working very well for me, I am progressing nicely and doing better each workout and feeling fresh going into my workouts. Also increasing my long run every 3 weeks. 

Today I was up at 6 a.m., but headed out the door still dark at 07:00 a.m.The plan for today was 1 x 800m at mile race pace or faster, my brother wanted to do 3:10 or less and then we would do 400m repeats at R pace ( R pace is around mile race pace). Knowing the that first repetition would be the 800m and it was going to be fast, my normal warm up was not going to be enough since as I get older I need more to warm up. Instead of doing 15 mins including 5 x 500m strides. I did 25 mins easy and after those 25 mins, where the last 10 mins were easy, but faster than normal to loose the legs. After those 25 mins were over, I did 6 x 15 seconds with 45 seconds rest walking before starting the next one. I generally do 5 x 50m strides ( around 15 seconds as well), but I dont walk between them, I just jog between them and I include them within the 15 mins. This time, I did the strides after the 25 mins were done. After the strides I waited for my brother to finish his warm up for 5+ mins. 

Then the workout started and we went out hard, He went out harder than me and basically was ahead of me the whole repeat, he beated me by one step. My goal was to run fast, relaxed and without losing my form. We did 3:04. His watch read 3:05, its weird because he beated me by one step. I was huffing and puffing a lot and after the 500m my legs were heavy,the last 200m were a struggle, but I did not lose my form. I also found that I was not enough warmed up, but I think that is part of myself getting older, I was not that cold either the extra easy mins of warm up plus the strides helped. I normally start very slow in the first repeat on my intervals despite doing strides within the warm up.

After the 800s we jog 800m to recover and then did 6 x 400m with 400m jog recovery and I felt that as the workout went by we were feeling better and getting looser. My splits were 1:38,1:36,1:31,1:33,1:33, and in the last one I was feeling loose enough and I wanted to crack 90 seconds, I did 84.42 and I had to divert from the path as there were people going my direction and people coming, so I had to run in the grass and I think I lose a second, but no biggies, still pretty surprised with that split and how good I felt. I am sure the long recoveries between the repeats really helped. I am very satisfied with this workout and finally feel that I am making progress, I did not run sub 90 seconds in 400m probably in almost 1.5 years. Then did 15:30 for cool down to home. Total volume was around 12k. My brother said that we did 6k including the recoveries, plus my 4k warm up + 2k cool down. We did pretty good today and I felt very strong. Very happy for my brother as he was very happy too. I think he can run much better than the 6:34 he did 2 weeks ago. Weather was fine.

Those morning runs are really helping and I am enjoying them a lot as well. 

Good workout and an easy run

 On Tuesday (yesterday) I was up at 5:30 a.m. and at 06:00 a.m. ( This is the earliest we can go out due to the curfew, I would like to go out earlier on workout days) headed out to the Turia park with my brother. Planned workout was to do 4 x 1000m with 400m recovery. The same I did 3 weeks ago. I can say that I have progressed nicely over the last few weeks. I warmed up 15 mins including 5 x 50m strides, faster than in previous days as my glute is behaving quiet well. My brother did drills so I had to wait a couple of more mins before we actually started the workout.

I was surprised, I thought that I would start aroud 4:40 per km I was doing in my last interval workouts because I was so cold at the beginning. However the weather is getting warmer. My 1000m repeats were 4:24, 4:28, 4:15, 4:10. The first 2 repeats were against the wind and the last 2 repeats with a tail wind as they felt at the same effort as the first 2 repeats. Very satisfied with this workout. I had not run that fast (4:15 and 4:10) since July or August I think. I have to admit that I was very unconfortable, but I toughed it out and could finish each repeat with good form. My brother also ran good, He did 4:28, 4:30, 4:20, 4:15. He also was very happy with this workout. Then I did 16 mins cool down to home. Around 6 miles for the day.  I was talking with my brother that I run as good as if I were running 6 times per week, with just 5 days per week. I feel that I got to every workout fresher. I am doing very good with 5 runs per week, but as soon as they announce some races, I probably will get back to 6 runs per week, or perhaps stay at 5 runs and start to do strength training to build some muscle as I dont have any, lol.

Today ( Thursday) I ran with my brother at 06:05 a.m. and we did the Maximo Gomez route, I dropped him at the 15 mins mark because he was running very slow. I finished the 8k+ in 52:55 and felt pretty easy and confortable. Tomorrow I will rest and on Saturday we will do some R pace work.

Have a great Thursday!

Getting back to the online blogging

 Hello folks, I have been taking time off from blogging, my training is going well. We did a 5k time trial on December 31th and I finished in 24:05, so it was an awful performance. Raced without the watch, and given that I was not doing any workouts, I ran poorly. I went out too fast for the first 500m, and that payed off in the second half. 

This past Saturday I ran a tempo run in 24:10, feeling much better than in the " time trial". Since January 1st I have been running all my runs in the morning. Weekdays at 06:00a .m. and on weekends around 08:00a .m., I find that I am much more consistent and feel much better in the morning. The hard part is to get out of bed, but I have been handling it very well. On Wednesday Feb 3rd I did a 5k fartlek with my brother. First half was very slow, was in 13:10, but then I tried to run faster and do the recovery faster, thats when I dropped my brother and finished the 5k fartlek (1 min fast and 1 min slow) in 25:23. So did the second half of the fartlek including the recoveries in 12:13 so both halves were in (13:10 and 12:13), my brother finished in 26:15 or something like that. I really opened it up in the second half and felt pretty good overall. This one was at 06:00 a.m. in the dark. I am loving these runs.

I am running 5 days a week, resting on Monday and Fridays, given that there are no races, I am running 5 days, doing 2 workouts and one long run per week. I got back to intervals 1 month ago and ironically my glute and hamstring problems are improving and feeling better in every workout. I have done 4 5k tempos in the past 5 weeks: 24:55, 24:38, 24:43, 24:10. After that 24:10, did 4 x 200s in 43, 44, 44, 42. I have been improving my 200s as well. Feeling better and better. My long runs is at 95 mins, and this Sunday we want to do 1:45 in order to break some mental barriers and to see if we can run a breakthrough improving our endurance.

Also on January 30th, we did a mile time trial and I surprised myself, did 6:25. My brother did 6:34 and JOrge did not finish, but went out like a bat, crossed the 500m around 1:50. I thought that I was going to do around 6:40 because my intervals were  at 4:40 per km the slowest and 4:20/ km the fastest. The week of the time trial did 1 x 1600m in 7:31, then did 6 x 400s in 1:42,1:37,1:39,1:37,1:37,1:31. Started very slow, but once I warmed up  I felt fine. I did that wotkout at 6:00 a.m. On the time trial, I warmed up 37 mins and included 3 mins uptempo (5:10 per km) and  6 strides, and then did the time trial. I warmed up a lot because on previous time trial I found that I was going out cold and that was affecting my finishing time, so in this one I tried the extra warm up and that felt fine. Never felt cold when I went out. In fact the first 400s felt " easy". I never looked at my watch, but I crossed the 1000m in 4:02 and then worked my way down to 6:25. First 400s according to my brother`s watch was 1:38, so I started slower and picked up the pace gradualy. On past time trials, I did not warm up well, but also was going out too fast. On February 27th we are going to do another time trial and of course I want to run sub 6:25.

Yesterday was a rest day, as I said I rest on Mondays and Fridays for the time being, I will back to 6 days of running once races are announced again and I think that the reduction of 1 day is actually helping my glute/ hamstring and my performance and improving ( certainly the reduction from 6 days to 5 days has not affected my performance at all).

Today I was up at 5:35 a.m. and was out with my brother at 6:15 a.m. and We did the Maximo Gomez route. We did it faster than normal today, but it was pretty easy still. After the 40 mins I included 6 strides and I felt really good on those. The glute bothered me a little, but after the second one felt pretty good. I finished the 8 +k in 50:38. These past two weeks I have been running this route in 52 - 53:30. Effort is easy, so on this runs pace dont matter much, in fact my workouts has improved eventhough I have been running my easy runs slower. Again this is not a goal, I just go out to run easy and given that I am too cold the pace turns out to be very slow.

I am enjoying these morning runs and feel much better in the morning. Sometimes I was at work and felt pressured, because I left work late ( already dark) and I was hungry and I had yet to get my run in. That does not happen in the early morning, because I am energized and once one warm up its all fine. After 2 p.m. you feel tired, but you already got your run in and you can go home relaxed knowing that you already ran.